Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

The Arc Michigan Announces Independent Facilitation Trainings

https://www.thearcofmidland.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/independent-facilitation-august-training.pdf

 

https://www.thearcofmidland.org/2018/07/05/independent-facilitator-training-814-815-or-821-822/

Speaking up for Policies to Fight Senior Poverty

California has the highest percentage of seniors living in poverty of any state. High housing and health care costs, coupled with inadequate retirement income means people who have worked hard all their lives are struggling just to stay in their homes. A story by KPBS, a media outlet in San Diego, profiled such seniors, and interviewed Justice in Aging Executive Director Kevin Prindiville. “Seniors are the people who cared for us. They’re the people who built our communities, who taught our kids, who worked in our hospitals. They really built our cities and our state and now to see them struggling so much just to put food on the table or to have housing, it’s brutal,” he said.  We at Justice in Aging have been pushing lawmakers to do more. Last month, California lawmakers changed the rules so that people receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) will soon be eligible to receive SNAP benefits. But many promising health care measures failed to gain traction. “It’s the first movement we’ve seen in some time for policymakers to address this issue of senior poverty,” said Prindiville. “There’s much more that can be done and needs to be done.”

New Advocate Guide to Advance Oral Health for California Seniors

Oral health affects overall health – this is particularly true for older adults. Yet, access to oral health treatment is limited by factors such as lack of dental coverage, complicated rules, and lack of dental providers. To assist California advocates in connecting their clients with oral health treatment, Justice in Aging released a new guide for California advocates. The guide includes tips to help advocates navigate the system and identify and address systemic barriers to care.  Get the Guide

Pushing CMS for Better Consumer Protections in Nursing Homes

Since January 2017, we’ve seen a disturbing number of instances in which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has eliminated, delayed, or reduced enforcement of important regulations that protect residents at the behest of industry lobbyists. We’re pushing back. We’re working with partners to document and detail the pattern of deregulation in a series of short policy alerts and with an online tracker. We’re also meeting with leaders at CMS to ensure that the agency considers the needs of residents, and not just the needs of operators

Good News in Kentucky Work Requirements Case

Last month, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Kentucky Medicaid recipients challenging the state’s efforts to impose work requirements as a condition of receiving Medicaid benefits. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are represented by the National Health Law Program, Kentucky Equal Justice Center, and Southern Poverty Law Center. We filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs with our partners at AARP, AARP Foundation, National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, and Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), with the pro bono support of the law firm Arnold & Porter. The judge referenced our brief multiple times in the decision. This case represents a significant win for Medicaid recipients in Kentucky, and for older adults, people with disabilities, and families in other states that are pursuing similar work requirements that would threaten their access to health care.

Administrative Law Judges Should Not Be Politically Appointed

President Trump has issued an Executive Order that takes away the independence of Administrative Law Judges by allowing them to be arbitrarily selected by political appointees. For people who have been denied Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income benefits, Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) play a critical role in determining whether they are in fact entitled to those benefits. Currently, ALJs must go through a competitive examination and selection processopen to all applicants. This process not only ensures that ALJs are qualified and experienced individuals who are able to meet the demands of the ALJ position, but also allows ALJs to decide cases fairly, without partisan interference, and without fear of potentially losing their jobs for not making decisions that favor the whims of one party or another. Under the President’s Executive Order, the only qualification now needed for a person to become an ALJ is that they are licensed to practice law. This sets up the potential for people to be hired primarily because of their political connections or party affiliation.  Over 85 percent of ALJs in the federal government work at the Social Security Administration, with others working in important agencies such as Health and Human Services (which decides Medicare cases) and the Department of Labor, among others. Politically appointed, and potentially inexperienced, ALJs will be more likely to decide cases based on the preferences of the party in power rather than the rule of law. This means many people seeking decisions about important claims, such as whether they are eligible for federal benefits, will be less likely to have their claim heard by a fair, experienced, and impartial ALJ. In the current administration, which is hostile towards federal benefits such as Social Security Disability Insurance, this would likely lead to a greater number of inappropriate denials of crucial benefits.  We oppose the President’s Executive Order and urge you to contact your Congress Member and ask them to stop the Administration’s efforts to deny the people in our communities their benefits, and the right to fair and impartial decisions.

Meet Tony Banks aka "Wheelchair Tone" July 2018 CLIENT OF THE MONTH

Click Here or on the picture above to hear Tony Banks' hit jam "The Wheelchair Anthem" accompanied by footage from our 5th Annual "Dreams Come true on Woodward" event. Be sure to keep an eye out for an original music video for the song coming soon! #bethemiracle                             Meet Tony Banks aka "Wheelchair Tone" July 2018 CLIENT OF THE MONTH                             THE DMAN FOUNDATION RECOGNIZES YOU! Each Month, the DMAN Foundation recognizes clients working hard in our state-of-the-art and barrier free Music Therapy Recording Studio. They have progressed clinically and are able to hold a positive attitude and outlook on life despite their disability. These individuals show great leadership and dedication, and for some, even become great mentors and friends to other clients. We are proud to dedicate our July 2018 ARTIST OF THE MONTH to one of our original D-MAN All Stars who serves as a great mentor and friend to all of the D-MAN artists, Tony Banks! "If it be thy will, then thy will be done, because everything is relative under the sun." - Tony Banks Channel 7 Interview 2016 Dreamcruise highlights

Top Attorney's In Michigan 2018

New Trump Administration Regulations and Guidance

The Bazelon Center continues to track new regulations and guidance issued by the Administration.

(1) Over the universal opposition of disability and other civil rights groups, the Department of Education announced a two-year delay in requiring compliance with its "significant disproportionality" regulation. The regulation, issued in 2016 but scheduled to take effect July 1, would require states to identify where there is significant racial disproportionality in the identification, segregated placement, or discipline of students of color with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Our comments on the delay highlighted how the Department had not considered the significant costs to students and society that would result from the delay, and that the Department had failed to provide any justification for the delay. We continue to believe the delay will jeopardize the long-overdue efforts to identify and eliminate discriminatory racial or ethnic disproportionality in special education policies, procedures, and practices, and we condemn the Administration's disregard of these concerns in the decision to delay the implementation of the regulation. On July 12, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) filed suit against Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to block the delay and require the regulation to take effect. 

Read Bazelon's comments here:

Bazelon Comments on Proposed Rulemaking on "Significant Disproportionality" 

(2) Our colleagues at NHeLP won a motion for summary judgement in their case challenging the Kentucky work requirements waiver granted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. You can read the decision here. The Bazelon Center has been commenting that the types of work requirements that have been proposed by states do not promote the goals of the Medicaid program, and the court adopted a similar analysis, finding that the work requirement that CMS had approved in Kentucky did not promote the goals of the Medicaid program. We will continue to comment on proposed waivers and we are carefully monitoring how CMS will respond to this decision.

Supplemental Settlement Reached in O'Toole v. Cuomo

Bazelon and its co-counsel, representing thousands of residents of "adult homes" in New York City, along with the Justice Department and the State of New York, asked a federal judge to approve a supplemental settlement agreement to resolve concerns about the State's compliance with an existing settlement agreement. The existing settlement resolved "Olmstead" claims brought by adult home residents and the Justice Department challenging New York's warehousing of people with serious mental illnesses in large adult homes rather than affording them supported housing. The supplemental agreement will add improvements to the process for engaging and transitioning adult home residents, including improved in-reach, a peer bridger program, a transition benchmark for every six months, a quality improvement process, and streamlining of the assessment process for class members seeking to transition out of adult homes. The court granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement and held a "fairness hearing" on June 18, 2018, where plaintiffs' expert and a number of adult home residents testified in support of the settlement. We anticipate that the court will grant final approval of the new settlement agreement.